UPDATE: This article is now outdated, as Skull and Bones' release date has been moved to March 9, 2023. Thank you, Ubisoft, for hearing out the people's pleas.

It's great and all that Ubisoft now has the Skull and Bones release date set for November, but there's just one problem. That problem's name is God of War: Ragnarok.

Skull and Bones Release Date is just a day before God of War: Ragnarok's

Skull and Bones is coming out on November 8, 2022. Meanwhile, God of War: Ragnarok is coming out on November 9, 2022.

While this does not automatically mean that Skull and Bones will be a commercial failure – in fact, far from it – Ubisoft should still reconsider this release window. God of War: Ragnarok is one of the most anticipated PS5 titles of all time – and players have been waiting for the game's release over the past four years. Dedicated fans of God of War will surely be prioritizing their time playing Ragnarok, and would not have time to play Skull and Bones at all.

This hurts the game in one way – Skull and Bones is a multiplayer game whose lifeblood depends on its number of active players. It is also its measure of success. If a majority of players in one of your market segments (i.e., your PS5 players) are too busy playing God of War, then they won't be able to join in on the fun along with the other players from other platforms. While this isn't a deal-breaker, this will still affect Skull and Bones' initial concurrent player count, which many reviewers and journalists will highly scrutinize.

Ubisoft needs to learn from Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West

Horizon Zero Dawn came out on the heels of Breath of the Wild and it got overshadowed in spite of its excellence. The same went for Horizon Forbidden West when it tried to go toe to toe with Elden Ring.

Breath of the Wild was a phenomenal beast, and it overshadowed Horizon Zero Dawn in spite of the two games being released on different consoles. Horizon Forbidden West, on the other hand, got beaten by a phenomenon that was more popular and was released on all platforms.

Skull and Bones, on the other hand, will be released on next-gen consoles and PC only. That means PS4 and Xbox One players won't have access to the game. With roughly a third of your target player base playing God of War: Ragnarok instead, the numbers won't look good.

Skull and Bones could end up being a game of the year candidate, but I don't think the hype for this particular game could overcome fans' excitement for God of War: Ragnarok. Ubisoft risks Skull and Bones getting overshadowed for having its release date so near to a gargantuan title's release date.

Skull and Bones has been delayed for so long, and the game will be a live service game anyway. It could benefit from an extended live testing phase and delaying it for a couple more months shouldn't hurt it too much. Video game journalists and critics will definitely forgive Ubisoft for delaying their game further, as it has become “the right thing to do” in a gaming industry full of half-cooked games that came out too early out of the oven. They can look at Luminous Productions and Square Enix who moved the release of Forsaken back to 2023 for “strategic reasons,” and see how journalists and fans have embraced this explanation. What's important is you're always communicating your roadmap and giving players an exact date to look forward to, even if it means you're changing that release date for a few times.

I'm not saying that Ubisoft should be scared of God of War: Ragnarok. I'm just saying that the Skull and Bones release date of November 8, 2022, is not the optimal time to release it. And I hope that Ubisoft would realize this before it's too late.